Finance

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway hikes SiriusXM stake to 32%

Published

8 months ago

October 14, 2024

Warren Buffett walks the floor and meets with Berkshire Hathaway shareholders ahead of their annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3rd, 2024.

David A. Grogan

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway continued to increase its stake in SiriusXM, now owning 32% of the New York-based satellite radio company.

The Omaha-based conglomerate purchased roughly 3.6 million shares for about $87 million in separate transactions Wednesday through Friday, according to a filing with with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Friday.

Berkshire hiked its bet after billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media completed its deal in early September to combine its tracking stocks with the rest of the audio entertainment company. It was part of Malone’s reshuffling of his sprawling media empire that also included a split-off of the Atlanta Braves baseball team into a separate, publicly traded company, which Berkshire also owns.

Buffett’s firm first bought Liberty Media’s trackers in 2016 and started piling into Siri’s tracking stocks in the beginning of 2024 after the deal announcement in a likely merger arbitrage play.

The 94-year-old has never mentioned the bet publicly, and it’s unclear if he’s behind it or if it’s the work of the billionaire’s investing lieutenants, either Ted Weschler or Todd Combs.

Not well loved

SiriusXM, which has been grappling with subscriber losses and unfavorable demographic shifts, is not a popular stock on Wall Street. Out of the 14 analysts covering the stock, only five gave it a buy rating, according to FactSet.

JPMorgan analyst Sebastiano Petti reopened coverage of SiriusXM with an underweight rating last week, citing concerns about the radio giant’s long-term growth and its ability to successfully target a broader demographic.

Meanwhile, the Liberty transaction, which reduced share count by 12%, could cause the company to pause share buybacks until 2027, which will likely weigh on shares, the analyst said.

SiriusXM

The stock popped 8% on Monday on Berkshire’s disclosure. However, shares are still down more than 50% this year.

The last time Berkshire invested significantly in a major media company was in 2022, when the conglomerate bought a nonvoting stake in Paramount Global‘s class B shares. The investment soured quickly. Buffett revealed in May this year that he had exited the entire stock at a big loss.

Buffett said the unfruitful Paramount bet made him think more deeply about what people prioritize in their leisure time. He previously said the streaming industry has too many players seeking viewer dollars, causing a stiff price war.

Finance

UK’s FCA teams up with Nvidia to let banks experiment with AI

Published

2 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

LONDON — Britain’s financial services watchdog on Monday announced a new tie-up with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to let banks safely experiment with artificial intelligence.

The Financial Conduct Authority said it will launch a so-called Supercharged Sandbox that will “give firms access to better data, technical expertise and regulatory support to speed up innovation.”

Starting from October, financial services institutions in the U.K. will be allowed to experiment with AI using Nvidia’s accelerated computing and AI Enterprise Software products, the watchdog said in a press release.

The initiative is designed for firms in the “discovery and experiment phase” with AI, the FCA noted, adding that a separate live testing service exists for firms further along in AI development.

“This collaboration will help those that want to test AI ideas but who lack the capabilities to do so,” Jessica Rusu, the FCA’s chief data, intelligence and information officer, said in a statement. “We’ll help firms harness AI to benefit our markets and consumers, while supporting economic growth.”

The FCA’s new sandbox addresses a key issue for banks, which have faced challenges shipping advanced new AI tools to their customers amid concerns over risks around privacy and fraud.

Large language models from the likes of OpenAI and Google send data back to overseas facilities — and privacy regulators have raised the alarm over how this information is stored and processed. There have meanwhile been several instances of malicious actors using generative AI to scam people.

Nvidia is behind the graphics processing units, or GPUs, used to train and run powerful AI models. The company’s CEO, Jensen Huang, is expected to give a keynote talk at a tech conference in London on Monday morning.

Last year, HSBC’s generative AI lead, Edward Achtner, told a London tech conference he sees “a lot of success theater” in finance when it comes to artificial intelligence — hinting that some financial services firms are touting advances in AI without tangible product innovations to show for it.

He added that, while banks like HSBC have used AI for many years, new generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT come with their own unique compliance risks.